How to remove your content from Google search, step by step

When a leak site ignores you — and the worst ones will — Google is your lever. Pirate sites get almost all of their visitors from search. Take the page out of Google and the leak is still technically online, but nobody finds it. Here is the process, free, in plain steps.

Step 1: find the real page address. Click through from the search result to the actual leak page. You need the page's own address, not the search link.

Step 2: open Google's copyright removal form. Describe your work in one line: your original photo and video content, published on your official page. Link your real page as proof it is yours.

Step 3: protect your name. Use your stage name on the form, never your legal name. Google forwards notices to site owners and publishes them in a public database called Lumen. Your stage name is enough.

Step 4: paste the bad links, one per line. One form can hold hundreds. Images and videos follow the same flow.

Step 5: wait 1 to 3 business days. Approved requests remove the pages from Google results. Then do the same on Bing — it powers Yahoo and DuckDuckGo too.

The catch is step 6: repeat forever. New copies need new requests. Doing this once is an afternoon; doing it every week is a job. It is the job Nullva automates — scanning, filing and re-filing while you get on with creating.

Two refinements that raise your success rate. First, file against the exact page addresses, not search-result links or site homepages — reviewers act on specific URLs. Second, if a request is denied, read the reason before refiling: the usual causes are a missing link to your original work or a description too vague to match the copy. Fix the paperwork and file again; a corrected request is a new request.

Keep a simple log as you go: the link, the date filed, and the outcome. When a removed page reappears under a new address — and popular leaks do — your log is the difference between a five-minute refile and starting from zero. Bing deserves the same treatment: its results also feed Yahoo and DuckDuckGo, so one Bing removal clears several search engines at once.